Under Fragile Stone

by Oisin McGann

  ‘I am a map-maker, and I am blessed with an accurate sense of direction. I was sure the light was in the wrong place. The Noranian assured me it wasn’t and started off in that direction. I followed, against my better judgement. As we got closer, I realised that the quality of light was different from a bule-oil lantern and I said so. The Noranian was suspicious too, but, unwilling to admit that he might be wrong, he kept on going.

  ‘We drew near enough to see that it wasn’t our camp at all, but a lone figure holding up a light. She was moving, and we could see what appeared to be an old woman. The Noranian called out and ran up to her and then stopped in his tracks. He turned and started running back towards me, shouting at me to flee. The old lady’s lantern went out and suddenly there came the sound of heavy, drumming feet. The Noranian spun to fire his crossbow – there was a cry, but the creature kept charging. Unable to see what was coming at us, I yelled at him to get out of the way and threw my lantern into the animal’s path. The glass smashed against something and the oil sprayed out and ignited, setting fire to the thing. Whatever it was, it was certainly no old lady and it was at least my size, probably larger. The Noranian fired another crossbow bolt into it and I scored a blow with my battleaxe across its neck as it passed me. But it kept going. It charged on into the night, the flames engulfing its body. It stumbled on, dying noisily and eventually we lost sight of it.

  ‘We had no doubt that it was dead, but we were not about to go looking for the body and trust our lives to our remaining lamp, so we started looking for our camp. I was confident of the direction, and before long, we saw the light again. In our relief at finding our way back, we forgot the crucial rule: always announce yourself when approaching a camp from out in the dark. There was the muffled blast of compressed air and something smashed through the lantern, punching straight into the Noranian’s chest. I shouted at the Karthars to hold their fire, but it was too late for my companion. They had shot at the light in his hand, fearing he was the very beast we had just killed. The harpoon had killed him outright. I stamped out the burning oil and cursed their names. The guides watched me warily as I approached, their harpoon guns reloaded.

  ‘The rest of the night and the following day passed without further adventure, but the guides assured me that there were many more “Lantern Ladies” out there in the Axmantle. They prey on the gullible and the lost, feeding on their bones and leaving the flesh like discarded rind. I don’t know how this one fooled us as it did, but never again will I go hunting strange lights in the dark.’

  * * * *

  Something sailed down out of the trees and landed lightly on the ground. Taya and Lorkrin stopped talking, looking out into the dark yard, ringed with apple trees that lay at the front of storyhouse, trying to make out what it was. Another glided down and this time they caught sight of it while it was silhouetted against the sky. The animal had jumped from high up in the tangle of trees on the hill and controlled its fall with the flaps of skin, which ran down the sides of its body from its elbows to its knees. The two creatures snuffled their way along the ground, approaching the building.

  ‘Hunnuds,’ Lorkrin whispered. ‘They must have found our trail.’

  ‘We have to tell Draegar,’ Taya replied softly. ‘If these things get back to the Reisenicks … I mean, the other Reisenicks, then we’re in trouble.’

  ‘We’re downwind of them, and they haven’t seen us yet. Maybe we can sneak inside.’

  They both let their colours fade to match the worn, oiled hide of the wall behind them. Looking up, Lorkrin saw that Rug was lost in his thoughts and tried to get his attention by hissing softly at him. Rug heard him and looked down.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked in a normal tone of voice.

  The hunnuds both looked up at them.

  ‘That’s torn it,’ Taya sighed and grabbed Rug’s arm, pointing. ‘We need to get inside, quickly.’

  The first one growled and squatted, baring its teeth. It launched itself forward with incredible speed, covering the distance to the terrace in moments, aiming straight at Rug. Taya tried to push him aside, but failed to budge his awkward frame. Rug reached out over her head instinctively and even as Taya felt claws dig into her back, there was a stifled yelp and the claws let go. She ducked down and rolled away, and saw that the hunnud’s throat was held firmly in Rug’s hands. The animal clawed desperately at the tall man’s arms, but he did not seem to feel a thing. The second hunnud let out a hoarse, shrill bark, much like that of a fox, and the two Myunans knew it was calling to others in its pack. They had to shut it up.

  ‘Over here!’ Lorkrin shouted suddenly, jumping up onto one of the windowsills so that he was silhouetted against the light. ‘Come on, you big louse! Come on!’

  The hunnud snarled and charged forwards, pushing off the ground and spreading its arms and legs so that it swooped up towards the boy on its stunted wings. It came in with the speed of a cat, and although he went to drop down out of its way, Lorkrin was caught in its jaws and their two bodies crashed through the window and onto a table inside. The table tumbled over and Lorkrin screamed as the creature got a better grip with its jaws. But then half a dozen weapons descended in a savage blur of stabbing and cutting, and eager hands seized the dying animal and dragged it off him. He stood up with some help and winced as someone pressed a cloth against his bleeding shoulder.

  ‘You need to get that seen to,’ the landlady said, getting him to hold the cloth in place himself. ‘Their bites can get infected. Are you all right?’

  ‘Taya … outside,’ he managed as he panted for breath.

  Men were already crowding out the door to investigate the throttled yelps outside. Lorkrin followed the crush out to find Rug still standing, holding the thrashing hunnud by the throat. The gangly figure seemed at a loss as to what to do with it. The Reisenicks from the storyhouse had no such problems and fell on it with their knives, pushing Rug aside in their haste to despatch the beast. They were a little too enthusiastic for Lorkrin’s tastes and once he’d seen that Taya was all right, he turned aside rather than watch. Draegar ruffled the boy’s hair and led him back inside.

  ‘Let them do what they will, lad,’ he said. ‘They’ve made this their business now. Come on, let’s get you fixed up.’

  Taya checked Rug over for wounds as he got back on his feet.

  ‘It’s a good job you wear all those layers of clothes,’ she told him. ‘I don’t think it got you. Do you feel okay?’

  ‘Yes. It was quite exciting, actually. But I didn’t know what to do with it once I had hold of it.’

  ‘You were brilliant. Come on, we’d better go and check on that daft brother of mine.’

  Lorkrin was having his wound washed and an ointment applied by the landlord’s wife. He flinched as she dabbed some of the stinging liniment to the bite. Draegar was standing nearby, talking with a small, grey-skinned, greasy-looking man in furs and rawhide. Despite his style of dress, however, it was clear he was not a Reisenick; he looked like a Gutsnape, from the Gluegrove Swamps.

  ‘… and that swamp-gas slurpin’ toad of a Reisenick, Ludditch, can sniff the steam off of my sweat if he thinks he can ruin a perfectly good evenin’ at my favourite tavern with his rot-ridden, mangy, nit-bitten hunnuds and get away with it!’ He punctuated his litany by accurately expelling some hajam-stained saliva into a nearby spittoon.

  The woman treating Lorkrin smiled reassuringly at Draegar. ‘Don’t mind his foul mouth, sir,’ she said. ‘Ol’ Trankelfrith is a sweetie, really. You have to mind he doesn’t overdo the hajam weed while he’s travellin’, but he’ll get you where you need to go.’

  ‘I’m headed back to the Gluegroves. Where you wanna go and how many of you are there?’ Trankelfrith asked Draegar.

  ‘There are four of us, two children, the thin man there and myself. We’re making for Old Man’s Cave, and we’re trying to catch up with two trucks headed in the same direction. We’d like to avoid any contact with Ludditch’s people if it could be helped.
’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind some contact with that fart-mouthed, frog-faced, fly-swallowin’ crab, myself, but if you don’t, I can take my sweet time getting round to it,’ Trankelfrith retorted. ‘Be ready to travel at daybreak.’

  * * * *

  Harsq woke from a nightmare in a cold sweat and sat up, swinging his legs off the bed. The taste of metal in his mouth was strong enough to make him grimace. His hands were trembling and he clasped them together to still them. He knew the earthquake was coming before he felt it. The bed began to shake and the wooden frame of the building creaked and groaned. The tremor steadily increased in strength and Harsq threw open the door of his room and ran outside in a panic. It was not enough that Absaleth’s spirit was pulling apart the fabric of the land to reach him. When the Reisenicks realised what he had brought down upon them, their vengeance would be vicious and terrible – vengeance he had already tasted in his tortured dreams.

  His disciples stumbled out of the building after him, shouting and crying, looking for somewhere safe to stand and not finding anywhere. He watched them from his hands and knees, feeling sick to the stomach with the motion of the ground. Behind him, he heard the cracking of wood and the building that housed the mechanic’s workshop buckled and folded in on itself. People screamed from inside.

  ‘They’re all out to kill me,’ he sobbed. ‘Dear Brask in the esh, what have I done to deserve this? What did I do wrong?’

  Another building collapsed, and then another. People ran out onto the street and animals cried out in terror. Fires broke out as lamps fell and smashed. Men and women rushed to grab buckets of water, but no one could do anything while the tremors continued to rock the town. Harsq laid his head on his forearms and cried.

  When their world stopped trembling, the people of the clans tackled the fires. Harsq’s followers joined in, doing what they could to help.

  Ludditch appeared not long after, just as the first rays of dawn were brightening the sky. He found Harsq in the cab of the generator truck, clutching his empty gas canister and staring into space. The priest jumped when the chieftain opened the door.

  ‘This is it,’ the chieftain declared to him, ‘I can feel it. It’s comin’ … it’s almost here. We just need to do this one last thing, find that damned heart and finish it like you said and we’re done. The ground’s just tryin’ to pull free, that’s all this is. And we’re goin’ to cut its chains. You with me, priest?’

  ‘Brask be praised,’ Harsq coughed. ‘Let His will be done.’

  ‘That’s the spirit, boy. Now, when they first showed up, Emos and his cronies said they were headed for Old Man’s Cave. Could be that was just to put us off, but I reckon their story was straight. So, we’re going to head that way. My boys have been staking out all the main trails up to the north and we got some on their way up to wait at the cave itself. You see, those caves are the only way into the mountain itself. Used to be an old hermit who lived up there who knew every inch of the place – straggly old bird who figured hisself as some great alchemist, and he told me all about that mountain, though not without some persuasion! And I know that there’s one tunnel that leads right into the heart of Absaleth itself. Now, where do you think they’d be takin’ Orgarth, if they wanted to get him back in his boots?’

  ‘Mr Ludditch, I still believe you’re wrong about this,’ Harsq protested. ‘The god-heart is back at the mines …’

  ‘Aw, now, don’t you worry about runnin’ Orgarth down, Kalayal, that’s our job. You just have to help us catch hold o’ him and bundle him out o’ here. Now, get your people in order and be ready to roll. We’re goin’ huntin’.’

  The chieftain strode away, bellowing instructions to his clansmen. Harsq put his head in his hands. Ludditch was out of control. He was insane. The exorcist sniffed and wiped his running nose. The land was coming apart. He had to flee Ainslidge before the Reisenicks realised what he had done to them. There would be no escape when Ludditch discovered the truth. Harsq looked sourly out through the windscreen at the ruined street, seeing only the mud road and the hungry soil he knew lay beneath. A sickened resolve settled in his heart. He had always been a faithful instrument of his god. If it was Brask’s will that he should die, then so be it. Praise be to Brask.

  * * * *

  Lorkrin awoke groggily. Somebody was shaking his arm and the movement shot a dart of pain through his injured shoulder. He opened his eyes to see Taya looking down at him. He was lying in a bunk in a small, room, the only light coming from the grey dawn glow through a small, latticed window.

  ‘Up you get – it’s time to go,’ she said, in that annoyingly bright tone their mother used in the mornings. ‘How’s that shoulder?’

  ‘Sore,’ he mumbled, wishing he could sleep longer.

  ‘That was some quake last night. I nearly fell out of the bunk.’

  ‘There was an earthquake?’ Lorkrin gaped. ‘Did I miss anything good?’

  ‘Nothing broke, if that’s what you mean.’

  He sat up and groaned; it felt as if he had only just laid himself down. He saw that Rug was already standing by the door, waiting patiently for him and his sister. With a last regretful look at his bed, Lorkrin quietly followed his sister out and closed the door behind him.

  The air was cold and damp, the morning still dark as the sun had risen high enough to light the sky, but had not yet reached down into the glade. Still feeling sleepy and hunching their shoulders against the cold, the Myunans followed Rug around the storyhouse to the stables. Trankelfrith, the Gutsnape from the Gluegroves, was there with Draegar, helping the Parsinor draw up a map of Ainslidge.

  ‘Morning!’ Draegar greeted them, as if he had enjoyed a long, deep sleep, rather than a night of drinking and telling tales. ‘How’s that wound, lad?’

  ‘’S okay,’ Lorkrin yawned, stretching to try and loosen up his stiff body and wincing slightly as it caused a twinge in his shoulder. ‘So are we taking horses, or what?’

  ‘Not quite,’ Draegar winked at them. ‘You’re in for a bit of a treat.’

  ‘Ah, young ’uns.’ Trankelfrith grinned at them, revealing teeth stained green by hajam weed. He pinched their cheeks and they winced as he shook the pinched flesh in some kind of show of friendliness. ‘Why don’t you two help me saddle up my little beauties here? But mind their mouths, they’ll give yah a nasty bruise if they get a hold o’ your flesh.’

  ‘And not just them, either,’ Taya muttered, rubbing her cheek as he turned away.

  The two Myunans came forward, faces lifting in curiosity as the Gutsnape unlatched the door of the stable and stepped inside. There came the sound of mewing, as if from a pair of huge kittens. Trankelfrith made some comforting noises, and there was the rattle of a bridle being strapped on and buckled up. Then he led the first animal out.

  The head was at about chest height, but was the size of a large hog’s. It had a triangular mouth set in a flat face, with three jaws lined with blunt, flat teeth. Its two shiny, black eyes were huge, set in raised sockets that moved independently of each other, so the animal could look two different ways at once. Along each of its sides, two sets of spines were folded in close to its body. Its green skin was dry and knobbly with turquoise blotches that suggested the dappled shadows of foliage.

  ‘A gruncheg.’ Taya smiled, approaching it carefully and running her hand through the coarse hair on the back of its neck.

  Trankelfrith led the animal forwards and seeing it come out of the stall was not unlike watching a magic trick. The stall could only have been seven or eight paces deep, but the gruncheg just kept coming, walking on row after row of stumpy legs, its body revealing itself to be at least twenty-five paces long. The creature had been coiled up inside the stall like a snake. With its rotund, green body and rows of legs, it resembled a giant caterpillar, but it moved more like a centipede. When Trankelfrith had led the first one out, Draegar took the reins and the Gutsnape went inside for the second. Lorkrin and Taya fussed over the creature, scratching the
top if its head and stroking its neck. It mewed sleepily and pushed its head up against their hands.

  ‘This is going to be a laugh,’ Lorkrin said, grinning from ear to ear.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Rug muttered. ‘How are we going to catch up with engined wagons on these creatures? They don’t look very fast to me.’

  Trankelfrith, who was affectionately plucking lice from the skin of the second one, looked over at Rug and cackled hoarsely. He licked his fingers and wiped them on his jerkin. Then he lifted the first of five saddles from inside the stall and hauled it onto the gruncheg’s back. The saddle had sturdy leather straps for stopping the rider from falling off.

  ‘They can trot along fast enough,’ he said, and gave another short cackle.

  The animals were loaded with saddlebags filled with Trankelfrith’s wares and then the riders climbed on and Trankelfrith strapped them in. Draegar and the two children were mounted on one and Rug climbed on behind Trankelfrith’s saddle. Before the Gutsnape got on himself, Draegar had a quiet word with Rug about their new companion.

  ‘You probably don’t remember anything about hajam weed,’ he muttered, ‘but it’s best that you know. Those that eat the weed experience the world as a brighter, sharper, more exciting place, but it has some nasty downsides. They can become a little too fearless and take unnecessary risks and there are times when they become so absorbed in what they are experiencing that they can forget important little things. Like breathing, for instance. If you see him starting to turn blue, just give him a shout and remind him to breathe. Apart from that, you should be just fine. Enjoy the ride.’

  ‘That’s not going to be very likely now,’ Rug said anxiously.

  Trankelfrith climbed on, pulling a fur cap with leather ear-flaps onto his head, turned back to wink at his passenger and then flicked his reins.